When he was out of sight, she snatched his jacket off the ground and said, “It was just a kiss, for crying out loud. There’s no need to get all bent out of shape!”
Liza wasn’t quite sure why she’d done it. The man had looked like he needed shaking up, that was all. She hadn’t meant to manipulate him with the kiss. Not exactly. Kicking the T-bird’s tires, Liza frowned, wondering for an instant if he was right. Did she like conflict all the time? Had she kissed Cliff Forrester just to stir up trouble? And why did she feel so damned stirred up herself around him? His rumbling voice gave her goose bumps.
Or maybe it was just the cool morning air. Shivering suddenly, Liza put the jacket back on.
He reappeared a few minutes later, materializing like a ghost out of the shadows.
“Damn!” Liza jumped. “Do you have to do that?”
“Do what?”
“Sneak up on a person like that!”
Forrester didn’t answer, but tossed a thick sweater at her. “Here,” he said. “Put this on before you go into shock.”
“I’m fine.”
“Yeah, right. You want me to run you to the hospital so somebody can take a look at that cut on your lip?”
“It’s just a scratch, for heaven’s sake.” She handed him his jacket.
He seemed on the verge of saying something else, but hesitated. A moment later, he shrugged. “Have it your way. The truck’s out back.”
Liza followed him around the lodge, simultaneously pulling on the long sweater and trying to stay on her feet as her narrow heels sank into the soft earth. The sweater reached her midthigh, two inches higher than the hem of her miniskirt, but it was wonderfully warm.
The truck turned out to be the same rusty old pickup Liza remembered from her youth—the vehicle her grandfather had used for hauling yard trimmings away. The idea of getting into it with an unknown quantity like Cliff Forrester made Liza a little nervous, but she decided to brazen it out.
“This old thing is still running?” she asked, yanking open the passenger door.
“I don’t use it much.”
“Oh, you have a car of your own?”
“No, I just don’t drive often.” He got in and slammed his door.
Liza did likewise. “Are you some kind of hermit, Forrester?”
“What’s wrong with being a hermit?”
“Not a thing,” she replied tartly, “if you like living alongside birds and skunks and chipmunks—”
“In the peace and quiet, you mean?”
“Is that a hint for me to shut up?”
“If I wanted you to shut up, I’d have told you,” he said, turning the key in the ignition. The engine spluttered and caught with an unmuffled roar. “Hang on tight,” he advised over the noise of the truck.
There were no seat belts in the old pickup, so Liza did as she was told.
Forrester drove carefully down the narrow road that wound through the trees from the lodge, the truck bouncing roughly in the potholes despite his caution. When he hit the highway at the bottom of the long driveway, he didn’t pick up speed but continued to drive the noisy truck very slowly. His prudent driving might have annoyed Liza under most circumstances, because she liked to get where she was going without dillydallying. But this morning she was in no rush to get to the town where she’d grown up. The thought of setting foot in Tyler made her very nervous. Unconsciously, she started chewing her thumbnail—an old habit she’d never broken completely.
“Look,” she said when they headed west on the highway with the sunlight streaming after them, “maybe there’s a better garage in Bonneville. Why don’t you turn around and go the other way?”
“Don’t worry so much,” said Forrester, not taking his eyes from the road. “Maybe you won’t see anybody you know.”
“I’m not worried about that! It’s my car, that’s all. It’s a delicate machine. It needs expert care.”
“Like the kind of care you were giving it when you ran over that tree? Don’t try to snow me, please. It’s obvious you’re scared to death about going home again.”
“I am not!”
“Why did you come back to Tyler if you didn’t really want to see your family?”
“It was a mistake,” Liza said, turning sulky. She looked out the window at the passing scenery—the lush pastures punctuated by stands of tall, Wisconsin trees. Sunlight was just starting to sparkle on the dew, turning the landscape into a dazzling green carpet.
Half to herself, Liza said, “I—I didn’t mean to end up here. It just happened. I was driving around.”
“What for?”
“I was mad! I was—oh, what do you care?”
“Mad about what?”
Liza sighed and leaned against the window, propping her fist against her chin. Despite her instinct to keep the facts secret, she said, “I quit my job.”
“Quit?” Forrester shot a look across at her.
“All right, I was fired. Satisfied?”
“How come you got fired?”
“It’s a long story, and the ending isn’t very interesting. I’m broke, to tell you the truth. The lease on my apartment expired last week, and the landlord changed the lock. Can you believe it! The old coot won’t give me my clothes until I pay the rent!”
“That explains the outfit, then,” Forrester said wryly. “It was the only thing you could get from the Salvation Army, right?”
“Who asked you for an opinion?”
He didn’t react to her anger, but continued to drive along the pasture fences. “Why don’t you just pay your rent?”
“I told you. I’m broke.”
“A grown woman like you can’t balance a checkbook?”
“It’s not that simple,” Liza said. “I’m an interior designer, see? I really wanted my last job to turn out great, so I...well, I kicked in a few bucks of my own. It messed up my cash flow.”
“What did you do that for?”
“Because I wanted the job to be wonderful! You see, it was this great executive office—overlooking Lake Michigan, marvelous sunlight all day, this beautiful view from a dozen floor-to-ceiling windows—everything! I made the place look terrific. Everybody said so. It needed a sculpture, though, to finish the concept. An artist friend of mine had the perfect piece—this mother and child thing that’s great—emotional, you know? Erotic, too, in a way that was very sophisticated. It was perfect for the office, and my friend needed the money very badly. So I—”
“So you spent your rent money on a sculpture that you’re never going to see again.”
“It’s not like that!”
Liza remembered the whole scenario in detail, but doubted she could make Forrester understand. Her artist friend, Julio Jakkar, had needed the money to finance a trip to a drug rehab clinic. Julio was ready to make it work this time, he said, but he’d refused Liza’s offer to pay for the treatment outright. Buying one of Julio’s pieces had seemed like the perfect solution to his problem. Except Liza hadn’t counted on losing her job a few days later.
She couldn’t make a tough loner like Cliff Forrester understand the complexities of a friendship with a sensitive, vulnerable guy like